Plan trademark protection around overseas markets, local requirements and cross-border brand operations.
Entering another market raises questions about names, languages, products and existing rights. Overseas trademark planning should reflect where the business will operate, how the brand will be used and which local issues need assessment.
Liangma Legalmark Trademark Team’s published international services cover overseas searches, filing and registration, recordal and protection, and cross-border trademark disputes. Reports here identify the relevant territory rather than treating one country’s rules as universal.
Questions to consider
Which markets are priorities, and what signs or local-language names will be used?
How do searches and local requirements affect the filing plan?
Who will coordinate use records, local support and cross-border disputes?
From 2026 to 15, 10, 14, the Ninth World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Intellectual Property Judges Forum was held at the WIPO headquarters in Geneva and online, with over 970 registered judges, of whom 167 attended in person. Three of the nine sessions focused directly on artificial intelligence, respectively addressing AI-assisted and AI-generated outputs, the use of protected works in AI model training, and the use of AI in court proceedings; the remaining six sessions covered topics including software and digital technology patents, trademark fair use, platform and intermediary liability, and cross-border disputes.
The World Intellectual Property Organization will set up a booth at the AIPLA Annual Meeting in Washington from 29 10, 2026 to 31, offering consultations on the Madrid and Hague systems, and will also hold a special workshop on the Madrid system. This article uses that occasion to explain: Madrid international registration is only one route to overseas trademark protection, and before choosing it, companies should first check three things — target markets, the basis of rights, and ongoing management.
Using the domain dispute decision in WIPO as an example, this explains how, when an overseas domain fully incorporates an enterprise's trademark and is used to impersonate the company in payment fraud, the UDRP procedure examines the three elements of confusing similarity, legitimate rights or interests, and bad faith; what evidence an enterprise should secure in advance, which procedural milestones to watch, and what enforcement matters beyond domain transfer still need to be handled separately.
Using a domain name dispute decision in WIPO as a sample, explain why a letter-transposition near-miss domain was found confusingly similar, how the burden of proof shifts when there is no response, how bad-faith use is reflected in a page of advertising links, and set out the materials Chinese overseas-expanding companies should check and prepare before filing a UDRP.
Using an WIPO domain name dispute decision as a sample, explain the three elements a brand owner must prove to claim transfer of a domain name in the situation of a similar domain name hosting a counterfeit website, the role of trademark registration and use evidence, the impact of the respondent's failure to respond and the domain name being deactivated on the findings, and the materials that outbound enterprises should first preserve when they discover a similar situation.
The European Patent Office held a quality dialogue meeting with Zebra Technologies, where the two sides exchanged views on direct European applications, the PCT route, national validation, the strengthened partnership, PPH and MyEPO improvements. The "bulk filing of PACE requests" mentioned at the meeting actually went live on 1 10, 2026. This article sorts out the verifiable procedural information, for Chinese companies expanding overseas that plan a European layout to compare application routes and acceleration tools.
